Has it occurred to you that many Europeans are absolutely frightened at the thought of a holiday

in the land of 300 million weapons? I have meet several people here in Austria and from Germany and have relatives in Spain who want nothing to do with visiting the States. Can't blame 'em. My children have decided that no trip to America is worth the danger. My daughter was considering an Au pair position, but that is now out of the question. The image of America as a blood thirsty, lumbering, naive giant is running rampant.

http://www.military-quotes.com/forum/terrorism-europe-t91323.htmlsample:
In 2010, 249 terrorist attacks were reported. The majority of these attacks were in France (84) and Spain (90). Islamist terrorists carried out three attacks on EU territory. Separatist groups, on the other hand, were responsible for 160 attacks, while left-wing and anarchist groups were responsible for 45 attacks. One single-issue attack was reported from Greece.

3. Not according to the Immigration Service.

Visitors this year are up from countries in Europe doing well and down from countries doing poorly. UK 1.7 million visitors thru June down 0.4% from last year, Germany 900,000 up 7.8%, France 700,000 up 4.4%, Spain 270,000 down 6.9%, Sweden 225,000 up 2.3%, Switzerland 210,000 up 7.3% and and Italy 350,000 down 1.4%.

19. I like facts not anecdotes.

If a poster is going to say people are not coming to the U.S. then I would like to see some actual facts instead of stories. Especially when the evidence is the opposite. Yes the Sandy Hook shooting is a week or so old but we have been told many times in posts that mass killings take place every two weeks.

20. It's too early for the facts you've presented to be relevant.

Sandy Hook was clearly the straw that broke the camel's back for many policy makers as well as everyday Americans (and for people overseas). It is a qualitatively different event in terms of its emotional impact on the debate. In 36 years, I have never seen this kind of upswell of support for gun control in the US. But it is too early to pull out statistics to show the impact of the event itself, let alone policies in response to it.

Maybe in six months, you will have your facts. Until then, there's no point in trying to shut down the discussion of possible impacts of this event on tourism or immigration as you do not hold facts which are any more relevant or accurate than anyone else's.

On edit: The immigration statistics are also irrelevant because they only tell you how many people are seeking to come to the US relative to other years. They don't tell you how many people would consider coming to the US but don't both because of crazy gun laws (or the death penalty, or the prison-industrial complex, or underfunding of schools, health care, infrastructure, etc.)

31. I can say that about anything that is irrelevant.

Tourism statistics are compiled once a year at best. They do not reflect a week old event. Comparing next year's tourism statistics to this year's will reflect the event and will therefore be relevant.
The number of people seeking to come to America reflects the number of people seeking to come to America. It does not reflect the number of people not seeking to come to America or why they are not seeking to come to America.
That's logic, not opinion or a rhetorical trick.
For someone who respects "facts" so much, you seem not to understand very well how to apply them to situations.
The Earth is an oblate spheroid. That's a fact. It's just not a relevant fact to a discussion of the impact Sandy Hook will have on tourism to the US so sadly I don't get points for "presenting facts". I get points for discussing the topic at hand- how many people who might otherwise travel to the US have been/will be put off by the recent gun violence? I don't know and neither do you. It's an interesting question. Anecdotally, it seems like something that is having an impact. Let's wait and see until the facts are in instead of posting irrelevant information and implying that gun violence has had no impact in order to shut the discussion down.

47. That in another few weeks Europeans won't even remember.

4. Once, in a London restaurant

about 15 years ago, our waiters were two young men recently arrived from Bosnia. Let's say, the left there in a hurry, escaping a war zone.
We told them we were from the States, near Chicago. They immediately pantomimed machine gun actions and exclaimed how they wondered how we could live here.
Now granted, through old gangster films, Chi-town may have a rep, but these guys from a war-torn area of the world were pitying US for living HERE, where gun violence is 'glamorized' in movies.

7. I work with Germans and Italians...so no.

8. I must say

it factors into my decision on where to vacation. Not that I have money at the moment, but for us Canadians, US shopping trips are quite common. I used to go on them a lot. Now...not so much. Last time I went to the US with a friend, we were sitting in a mall, and as we were watching people go by, she asks me, "I wonder which ones are carrying a gun?" Yeesh, I hadn't thought of it. We both breathed a sigh of relief when we crossed back over the border. It didn't dominate our whole trip, but it was in the back of our minds the entire time and we hardly realized how bad it was until we crossed back over.

Many older Canadians become snowbirds (Canada in the summer, US in the winter). My great-Uncle and aunt used to spend their winters in Arizona (too old now). My parents were thinking about buying a winter home there. Now they are reconsidering, solely because of the whole gun issue. My parents grew up near the US border and think most Americans are scary - at least the ones they used to play baseball with, lol.

41. Gun-related homicide statistics are available from the DoJ.

The most recent year available (2010) had 8,775. The homicide rate - for all methods, not just firearms - was 4.8 /100,000, the lowest rate since 1963 (but still awfully high). Obviously, how much that figure applies to one's actual probability of becoming a victim depends to an extremely significant degree on where in the US one happens to be.

The Bloomberg stats include suicides by firearm, which have absolutely no bearing whatsoever on the risk assessment of someone from Europe considering a visit to the US.

45. fine, let's use your numbers. according to your article, from the fortune tellers

at bloomberg....
"Shooting deaths in 2015 will probably rise to almost 33,000"

excuse me for using actual factual data, but anyway, 33.000 / 315,000,000 = % 0.0001050955414.
So I guess the folks from Europe who are "frightened" to vacation in the US due to all the guns, would have more of a chance to be attacked by a great white shark, and struck by lightning in the same day.
I guess I'm just getting tired of all the made up bullshit stories I have been reading on DU since the severely disturbed asshole in Connecticut decided to kill all those innocent children.

36. Well

37. My husband, my daughter and I visited London

a few weeks after the 7/7 bombings. Most of my family and acquaintances were surprised that we did not cancel the trip, but they were utterly shocked that we planned to use public transportation to get around. "OMG, don't do that! WTF is wrong with you? Haven't you been watching the news?" they exclaimed. They were sure we were going to be blown up while riding the subway.